->''"Then he used his fight money to buy two of every animal on earth, and then he [[Literature/TheBible herded them onto a boat]]... and then he beat the crap out of every single one!"''-->--'''[[http://store.steamgames.com/app/985/ The Soldier]]''' from ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'', on [[Literature/TheArtOfWar Sun Tzu]]

Simply put, military humor, LoveItOrHateIt. This particular brand of funny centers on stereotypically dim-witted military personnel, asshole officers, and naive recruits. And a RagtagBunchOfMisfits.

Comes in two flavors: Wartime and Peacetime. Expect a wartime military farce to turn DarkerAndEdgier in the penultimate act when the "real war" comes calling for the characters.

----!!Examples:

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[[folder:Anime & Manga]]* ''Anime/MartianSuccessorNadesico'' includes some military farce, even if it's only to contrast the difference between the real military and the Nadesico's crew of [[BunnyEarsLawyer oddball civilian contractors.]]* ''Anime/StrikeWitches'' has a DisasterDominoes episode due to Erica borrowing someone's underwear without permission.* In a sharp contrast to the original book's militaristic and nationalistic beliefs ''Anime/MayaTheBee'' is pretty light on army matters: the hive isn't as militaristic and Maya is free to wander around the world. What it also includes is an army of ants who is parodied as dignified and proud but is actually pretty shortsighted and thoughtless.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]* Swedish comic ''91:an Karlsson'' has been going on this theme since 1932.** As is ''91 Stomperud'', its licensed Norwegian equivalent. It began in 1937.** ''Flygsoldat 113 Bom'' (the Air Force) and ''Flottans gossar, Frisk och Rask'' (the Navy) aren't, however, but they had a good long publishing history. Basically, up until very recently Sweden had a conscript army for a very long time, so almost all adult Swedish males could relate to military humour. ''Beetle Bailey'' is also absurdly [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff popular in Sweden]] for the same reason.* ''ComicStrip/BeetleBailey'' is a peacetime variant to comic extremes, centering on a military camp located on the US which has somehow managed to remain uninvolved in armed conflict despite numerous wars over the strip's lifetime (Possibly because the Army has figured out that the best way the soldiers in that camp can aid the war effort is to stay as far away from it as possible).%%* ''ComicBook/SadSack''.%%* ''ComicStrip/PVTMurphysLaw''* Bill Mauldin's ''ComicStrip/WillieAndJoe'', published in during WWII, and later collected in ''Up Front'' and ''Back Home''. He made fun of the top brass so well [[ButtMonkey General Patton]] threatened to stop publication of ''Stars and Stripes'', but Eisenhower came to Mauldin's defense due to the comics' morale-boosting effect.* ''{{ComicBook/Asterix}}'': Roman soldiers are portrayed as a bunch of weak and incompetent losers. And quite a few centurions aren't that better. The army is very lacking in efficiency and organisation, the spirit is that everyone is only out for themselves and everyone treats their job as a chore.* ''ComicBook/{{Sturmtruppen}}'' is a satiric comic telling the life and misadventures of a German battalion during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. To give you an idea of what Sturmtruppen is like, a story arc deals with a soldier [[NakedPeopleAreFunny going around naked]] because he has found out [[AintNoRule the rulebook doesn't say they actually have to wear their uniforms]], [[ExactWords only to keep them in perfect order]], and the doomed attempts of the captain and the sergeant to make him ''wear'' the uniform before the rest of the battalion follows [[{{Pun}} suit]]. [[UpToEleven That's not the most outrageous thing that has happened in the series]].* ''ComicStrip/BlueyAndCurley'' was a WWII Australian comic strip featuring two larrikan Australian soldiers: Bluey (who had served in the First AIF), and Curley, a new recruit. At the end of the war, the strip followed the pair as they transitioned back to civvy street, and it gradually stopped being military humour.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Film]]* The ''Film/{{Carry On|series}}'' films visited this theme several times:** ''Film/CarryOnSergeant'' is set among National Service recruits in the British Army, who comprise an assortment of buffoons, snobs, hypochondriacs, and ne'er-do-wells.** ''Film/CarryOnJack'' is set in the [[WoodenShipsAndIronMen Navy during the Napoleonic Era]], with a chronically seasick captain, his scheming first mate, and an accident-prone midshipman.** ''Film/CarryOnInTheLegion'' is set in the FrenchForeignLegion, with the usual clueless officers and naive [=NCOs=] and privates who couldn't find their way out of a sandpit, much less find their way through the desert.** ''Film/CarryOnUpTheKhyber'' is set in the British Raj, and starts with the joke that the supposedly terrifying kilted soldiers of the local regiment (who include a motley group of cowards and clots) actually wear giant pairs of [[ManInAKilt underwear beneath their kilts]].[[note]] Until the final scene, anyway.[[/note]]** ''Film/CarryOnEngland'' is set in a gender-integrated military division on the Home Front in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, the members of which are far more interested in pursuing sexual escapades than in anything to do with the military, to the frustration of the incompetent CO and the buffoonish RSM.%%* ''InTheArmyNow''%%* ''Film/{{Stripes}}''* ''Delta Farce'', starring Creator/LarryTheCableGuy and Danny Trejo.* ''Film/HotShots'' and ''Film/HotShotsPartDeux''; parodies of ''Film/TopGun'' and ''Franchise/{{Rambo}}'' respectively* ''Film/MisterRoberts'', which is about the Navy for a change.%%* ''Film/DrStrangelove''* ''No Time for Sergeants'' presents an Air Force take on the genre* ''Literature/CatchTwentyTwo'' is military farce turned UpToEleven.%%* ''TheWackiestShipInTheArmy.''* ''Film/OperationPetticoat'' about a US Navy submarine's problems at the outbreak of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII in the Pacific.* ''Film/DownPeriscope'' is another submarine example, with a RagtagBunchOfMisfits being assigned to crew a UsefulNotes/KoreanWar-era diesel submarine as part of a wargame scenario.* ''Film/PrivateBenjamin'', the subsequent TV series even moreso.* ''Buck Privates'', starring Creator/AbbottAndCostello.* ''I Was a Male War Bride'', a VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory 1949 film with CaryGrant as a French army captain who ends up DisguisedInDrag as a U.S. army nurse in order to accompany his U.S. Women's Army Corps wife back to America after UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. (This was because the Pentagon had only anticipated war brides, not war grooms.)* ''Film/ZeroMotivation'' is the Israeli take on this trope.* ''Film/BuffaloSoldiers'' is a satirical comedy where a bunch of bored soldiers stationed in West Germany near the end of the Cold War pass their time by manufacturing drugs.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]* Modern readers of ''Series/{{MASH}}'' may be surprised to find that the original book was more about military farce than social commentary. Later books in the series do include a lot of social commentary, but it's ''conservative'' social commentary.%%* ''Literature/CatchTwentyTwo''* ''Captain Fatso'' was just one a series of little remembered but once popular navy farces written by Rear Admiral Daniel V. Gallery.%%* ''The Ship with the Flat Tire''* The Literature/McAuslan series by Creator/GeorgeMacDonaldFraser consists of affectionate, semi-fictional Armed Farces stories. His ''Quartered Safe Out Here'' is a less farcical, less fictional (though still quite funny) memoir.* Fraser's Literature/{{Flashman}} series is a good example of the wartime kind, featuring a DirtyCoward DesignatedHero as the protagonist and replete with BlackComedy throughout.* ''Literature/AdolfHitlerMyPartInHisDownfall'' by Creator/SpikeMilligan. BasedOnATrueStory, but no less farcical.* Hašek’s classic satire ''The Good Soldier Švejk'' is about the lunatic ineptitude of the Austro-Hungarian Army in UsefulNotes/WW1 seen through the eyes of the cunning soldier Švejk.* Creator/EvelynWaugh's ''Literature/SwordOfHonour'' trilogy is a story of a man who trains to be an [[SuperSoldier elite commando]] in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII... and spends almost the entire war dealing with pointless bureaucratic red tape and farcical incompetence. Only once in the entire war does he actually even see a [[ThoseWackyNazis German soldier]] with his own two eyes, and that is an indication that he has gotten hopelessly lost and accidentally gone too far toward enemy lines. This series was [[RealLifeWritesThePlot based on Waugh's own experience]] as a Royal Marine during the war, during which he participated in several military actions... all of which were incompetently-managed and utterly ineffective fiascoes.* A section specifically made for military humor has always been a tradition for ''Magazine/ReadersDigest'' magazine.* Literature/{{Discworld}} has some examples, such as ''Discworld/MonstrousRegiment'' and portions of ''Discworld/{{Jingo}}''.* Creator/MaryGentle's ''Literature/{{Grunts}}'' has military joking aplenty. From the hapless recruits under [[DrillSergeantNasty Gunnery Sergeant Ashnak]] early in the evolution of the Orc Marines to the equally hapless elf recruits and their orc trainer Sgt. Dakashnit later on. Dakashnit's advice for her recruits on what to do if their parachute fails, in particular.* ''Literature/RallyRoundTheFlagBoys'', about the establishment of a Nike base in the New England town of Putnam's Landing.* "A Ship Named Francis", a short story by Creator/JohnRingo and set in the Literature/HonorHarrington universe, concerns a Manticoran [[TheMedic Corpsman]] who joins the ''Francis Meuller'', a ship in the allied Grayson Navy. He quickly discovers that the whole crew are various flavors of ''batshit crazy''.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]%%* ''Series/AlloAllo''%%* ''Series/TheArmyGame''* ''Series/AtEase'', a short-lived '80s sitcom starring Jimmie Walker of ''Series/GoodTimes'' fame.* ''Series/{{Blackadder}} Goes Forth'', set in the trenches of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI.%%* ''{{Series/Bluestone42}}''* ''Series/CPOSharkey'' with DonRickles.* ''Series/DadsArmy'' is set in the British Home Guard during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII and features an arrogant but inept brigade commander, his sensible but ignored second-in-command, and the five men under their command, three of whom are over 60 years old, one of whom is a conniving spiv, and one of whom is a wet-nosed mummy's boy.%%* ''Series/{{Enlisted}}''* ''Series/FTroop'' is set at Fort Courage, a western frontier fort and dumping ground for the worst of the US Army after the Civil War. The commanding officer is a clumsy buffoon who only rose to high office after accidentally being in the right place at the right time during the war's final battle at Appomattox, the lookout has such bad eyesight that he can't even see the end of his own nose, and the two most prominent [=NCOs=] have various criminal enterprises going in partnerships with the local native tribe, the Hekawis.* ''Series/GaryTankCommander'' is a BBC Scotland sitcom about Corporal Gary [=McLintoch=], who's a tank commander in the fictional 104th Royal Tank Regiment. The series is set back in Scotland, with Gary and his friends having just returned from the warzone (Iraq in the first season, Afghanistan in the second). * ''Series/GetSomeIn'' features a rare Royal Air Force-set example, with UpperClassTwit officers, DrillSergeantNasty [=NCOs=], almost animalistic career airmen, and gullible National Service recruits.%%* ''Series/GomerPyleUSMC''%%* ''Series/HogansHeroes''* ''Series/ItAintHalfHotMum'' has a Royal Artillery Concert Party whose CO and second-in-command are {{Upper Class Twit}}s with minimal interest in actually running things, a DrillSergeantNasty Battery Sergeant Major who actually does run things with sadistic glee, and a motley assortment of Bombardiers and Gunners (equivalent to corporals and privates in the Army) who may have artistic talent (mostly) but no talent whatever for soldiering.%%* ''Series/McHalesNavy''* ''Series/MajorDad'' inevitably included some miliary farce (as you would expect from the title) though the true focus was on DomesticComedy.* The first couple seasons of ''Series/{{MASH}}'' included a lot of military farce before they decided to concentrate more on general social commentary. However, at least some military humor was inevitable, given the setting.* ''Series/{{NCIS}}'' and its parent series ''Series/{{JAG}}'' this trope only happens Stateside and not when on the frontlines.* ''Series/ThePhilSilversShow'' starred Silvers as Sergeant Ernest Bilko, a huckster running a US Army motor-pool, who frequently conned the base's colonel.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Music]]* Creator/TomLehrer released a song called "It makes a fellow proud to be a soldier", which pokes fun at the military.-->Now, Ed flunked out of second grade, and never finished school\\He doesn't know a shelter half from an entrenching tool\\But, he's going to be a big success\\He heads his class at OCS\\It makes a fellow proud to be a soldier!*** ([[DontExplainTheJoke "OCS" is Officer Candidate School]]).[[/folder]]

[[folder:Radio]]%%* ''Radio/TheNavyLark''%%* ''Radio/{{Hut33}}''* ''Deep Trouble'', set on a British nuclear submarine. They inadvertently torpedo the USS Nimitz in the opener of the first episode.* Occasional parts of ''The Leopard In Autumn,'' set in Renaissance Italy.* ''Radio/TheRickyGervaisShow'': Some of the stories involving Karl's brother Mark. He had an affair with his commanding officer's wife and was kicked out of the army for "going for a packet of fags in a tank".[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]* "Meet The Soldier" trailer for ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' is a perfect example.** ''Team Fortress 2'' in general, really. As opposed to a typical realistic military FirstPersonShooter, everything uses a cartoony style and the different playable classes are larger-than-life humorous personalities.* The first ''VideoGame/BattlefieldBadCompany'', where three military screw-ups and their long-suffering sergeant go AWOL to hunt for mercenary gold.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]* ''Webcomic/AirForceBlues'', though the characters are more like {{Bunny Ears Lawyer}}s than full-on incompetent.* ''Webcomic/GoneWithTheBlastwave'' makes use of this in a post-apocalyptic conflict. As one character asks: [[http://www.blastwave-comic.com/index.php?p=comic&nro=26 "Why haven't we lost this war yet?"]]* ''Webcomic/CrewDogs'': Similar to ''Webcomic/AirForceBlues'', a comic about a squadron of [[BunnyEarsLawyer Bunny Ears Aviators]].* ''Webcomic/TerminalLance'', a comic based on enlisted Marine life ([[TagLine You can't spell "Disgruntled" without "Grunt"!]])* ''Webcomic/DoctrineMan'', because junior officers are people too.* ''Webcomic/ContraFarce'' features mostly clueless mercenaries and ex-military.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]* ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'' practically ''embodies'' this trope. [[spoiler:It starts getting serious (somewhat) when ''actual'' soldiers start showing up]].** In the 8th season, we learn that the Red and Blue armies are actually [[spoiler: used for training simulations, with the soldiers consisting of the lowest-rated troops that think they're fighting a real war.]] When we see other Red and Blue teams, we see that they can be almost as stupid, if not even more so, than the main teams.-->'''Church''': (After the Blue Team is sent a tank that none of them can drive) Holy crap, ''who is running this army?!?''* ''SpriggsAHalo3Machinima'' unlike the Reds and Blues above, a lot of the characters are real ''badasses'', but they are stuck in Zambi 7 with nothing to do, and are placed there to rot.* ''Literature/SkippysList'' has elements of this.* ''BattyBattalion'' Follows this trope to the tee, It has stupid military personnel, asshole military personnel and naive military personnel who spend more time bitching about each other and the Covenant than actually fighting them.* The "Shut The Fuck Up, Carl!" meme: What happens when one member of the squad is a CloudCuckoolander with no brain-to-mouth filter? * "You see Ivan": Similar to the above, except involving Russians, RecklessGunUsage, and plenty of InsaneTrollLogic.--> You see Ivan, when hold peestol like rifle, you shall never shoot the inaccurate for fear of shooting fingers.\\Observe Vladimir, when hold rifle like pistol, you stronger than recoil for fear of hitting face.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]* ''WesternAnimation/PrivateSnafu'', a series of [[FauxToGuide army "training" films]] made during UsefulNotes/WW2.* WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck starred in a series of {{Wartime Cartoon}}s in which he played a bumbling private under [[DrillSergeantNasty Sergeant Pete.]]* ''WesternAnimation/TheRenAndStimpyShow'' episode "In The Army".* The ''{{WesternAnimation/Futurama}}'' episodes "War Is The H-Word" and "When Aliens Attack". Indeed, any episode centered on Zapp Brannigan will have some elements of this.** Also "Roswell That Ends Well", with the antics of Private Enos, Fry's grandfather.[[note]]Well, [[MyOwnGrampa not really]][[/note]]* ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' short "Forward March Hare", in which WesternAnimation/BugsBunny joins the army and [[RealityEnsues is treated like you'd expect an anthropomorphic rabbit to be treated if inducted into the army]]: with disbelief or thoughts of one losing one's mind. Make what you will of the fact that Bugs also once starred in a WartimeCartoon[=/=]recruitment commercial for the US Marines. [[note]]Apparently they were less inclined to be picky; see the trope page for details.[[/note]] It is also one of the few cases where Bugs is as blind as everyone else and screws things accidentally.* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' Homer winds up joining the army and ends up in a squad of dimwits like him, they took part in an army exercise which involves using them as cannon fodder, they run off and hide in Springfield to which the army occupies the town to flush them out.* ''WesternAnimation/TheMask'' once joined the marines and somehow was put in charge of guarding a battleship, to which he traded to kid for baseball cards.* ''WesternAnimation/MK22'' is an Israeli animated comedy that is made entirely of this trope. It follows the increasingly zany happenings at a [[OpenSecret top secret]] nuclear missile silo deep in the Negev desert, as seen from the point of view of two enlisted men serving as quartermasters. Over its 10-episode run, the series manages to parody and hang lampshades on pretty much every aspect of service in the [=IDF=], and still has time to laugh as Israeli society in general.[[/folder]]